Unexpected Love
by katthana44
Summary: Itachi needs a medic so that his illness does not kill him before Sasuke can take his revenge. Sakura is that medic. But what happens when Itachi wants to live. Sakura starts something that she did not every think would happen. Will Itachi live, Will Sasuke get his revenge, and will Sakura be stuck in the middle of something that should have never involved her? Read and find out.


"Sakura!" screamed the Hokage. "Get in here!" Sakura quickly ran in to the office to find that her shishou was staring at a scroll rather angrily. It was about 10 that night and Sakura had just finished a long shift at the hospital. She could seriously go for a large green tea right now. She bowed to Tsunade and asked, "Yes Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade looked up from the scroll with dread wrote all over her face. "I'm sending you on a solo mission. This has to be handled very delicately and in complete secrecy. You are to head to a small town just north of here. There you will meet up with one of our informants. He will tell you all that he knows of the mission at hand. It is a recon mission against the Akatsuki. It is to be handled quickly but must be kept under the covers. It seems that Itachi and Kisame are moving to go after Naruto again and if that turns out to be the case, we have to raise our defenses for an attack like the last one."

She was left breathless at the end of her statement but Sakura was the one who was completely shocked. She had only ever been sent on one solo mission and it was a B-ranked mission. This was at least a S-ranked mission. She had many worries from the second that Tsunade had said solo. "Are you sure that I should be doing this alone Tsunade-sama?" she asked knowing that she would get an answer that she did not want.

"You are the only person that I can trust for the mission and the task at hand. I don't want to have to send you on this mission but I cannot think of anyone else and I trust your ability to get the job done right."

"Hai, Tsunade-sama," was all that Sakura could muster to say.

"Good. You will set out at dawn tomorrow. Get a good night's rest tonight so that you have enough energy for the travel ahead of you." After Tsunade was finished talking Sakura headed out of the room to run right in to Naruto. "What are you doing here Naruto?" inquired Sakura.

"Tsunade said to come and have a word with her." At that, he ran into the office after a quick huge.

The sun was not yet up when Sakura shut the door behind her. She had told her parents that she would be gone for a while and they, as usual, ignored her. She had always tried to be considerate of their feelings about things and wanting to know what was going on with their daughter but it seemed that in the past few years, they had just disconnected themselves from her. More than likely, they thought that her life as a shinobi would be a young death for her. Sakura sighed at the thought of it but they were right in a way. The life of a shinobi was normally a early death.

Heading out of the main gate of Konoha, Sakura set her mind in mission mode as she found a tree to begin her travel north. As she sped through the trees, she could not help but feel that this mission would end badly for someone. If her past was any indicator, it would be her on the receiving end of pain.

She was fast on her feet for a shinobi that did not travel out on missions all too often anymore. When Sasuke left, Naruto and her did not have that may missions and then only a few months later, Naruto left to train so Sakura was left without a team at all. She had traveled a little as a teams medic but it was rare. She was mostly at the hospital working a 12 to 18 hour shift or studying on of the many medical books that Tsunade had given her. Sakura rather enjoyed traveling out on missions but she did not have the luxury of ever getting easy missions anymore, seeing as she trained under the Hokage herself.

All these thoughts ran through her head as she began to run, full-speed, towards her target. The informant was only staying in the location given for a few days before he would disappear again. This same informant always seemed to pop up and it was always when something was going on with Itachi Uchiha. Sakura had not been on a mission to get info from this informant before but from what the shinobi that had been said, she did not know if this was a good source. Every single time that this informant had come up, he had not shown himself fully to the shinobi and Itachi was never far behind him in finding out who he gave the info to. It made Sakura wonder if they were trying to pick off some of Konoha's Shinobi but had not been having luck. If that was the case, she hoped that there were some more experienced shinobi in the village that she was headed to. Itachi alone could easily kill her, but him and his fearsome partner, which complicated things even more.

After 6 hours of non-stop running, Sakura arrived at the meeting place the informant had specified. No one was there that she could tell so she sat and waited. A hour passed before she thought that she sensed a small trace of someone but it was gone as soon as it arrived. Sighing she put her head into her hands and began to daydream. Only a few moments into her thoughts she was interrupted, not by a unknown voice but by one that she knew and hated. Turning around to find the source she locked eyes for a second with deep red sharingan before she felt herself being pulled into a deep sleep.

Itachi looked at the young konoichi curiously. He did not expect her to be so young. Honestly he did not expect it to be a girl. Seeing that she was already asleep from the sharingan attack, he motioned for Kisame to come and pick her up. As Kisame entered the small clearing from the sidelines, he said, "Why do I have to carry her? She is so small that you could do this one yourself."

"You know very well that with my illness even that could speed it up. I have to live a short while longer and if my information is write, Tsunade sent her best medic on this mission." Itachi's eye turned into their normal dark grey as he grabbed his forehead as a slight headache set in from his loss of vision and the use of the sharingan. "She may be able to repair some of the damage to my eyes as well," he said in a stagnant voice.

"Fine but next time we get a prisoner, your lifting your own weight in this partnership. I hate all the heavy lifting." At that he bent down and grabbed Sakura smoothly in his arms before sliding her onto his back while he held his sword.

They set off from the location being careful to remove their scent since Konoha used dogs to track. Quickly they made their way further north and then cut back towards Lightning county. Travelling at the pace that they were going, they would be at the border by midnight.


End file.
